


Distance

by FormlessSnow



Category: Cobra Starship
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse, But Not Featured, Characters Mentioned, Drug Use, Drugs, End of the World, Everyone is Dead, Everything Hurts, Grief/Mourning, Isolation, Last Day On Earth, Last Man Alive, M/M, Overdosing, Plague, Post Mpreg, Sad, Sad Ending, Suicide, Survival, Survivor Guilt, Terminal Illnesses, horrible pacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 20:47:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20442272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FormlessSnow/pseuds/FormlessSnow





	Distance

October 11. It was his birthday. He should be happy, celebrating it with his father or his wife or his children or friends or all of them. But he was unable to. He was the last person on Earth and he was miserable. 

Sometimes, he'd find a place where the internet was still up. There were a few companies that did allow it. At those places, he'd burn CDs and DVDs of his friends. He'd laugh at the stupid jokes Pete made; he'd find the old CobraCam TV videos. He touched his stomach during the reality show one. That bit of humor wasn't funny anymore. Not to Gabe. Never again to Gabe.

* * *

_December 27. He had been drunk, on liquor, and he'd found someone, some random dude who was somehow clean. It was stupid, how desperate he had been for Dan, but Dan was there for him and let him cry._

_ Some strains of the disease that had wiped out humanity had been defective, ones that changed your DNA but didn't kill you. Gabe became hyper fertile when he was infected shortly after the spread. He didn't care with Dan, who'd had a vasectomy in '09 because he didn't want children, as Gabe had found out before there was a hint of want and they were only talking about the people they had lost._

_ But he should have._

_ Dan, for his part, was apologetic and supportive, and jokingly told him that he'd have to marry him soon when Gabe was in a joking mood. "I'll take your last name, Saporta. You've got character. Not just any old Smith." He sat with Gabe when he was throwing his rations back up, and if ever they had a dessert, something well-preserved and edible or find a recipe they could make, he'd save part of his portion and give it to Gabe as consolation after he emptied his gut. Gabe adapted to only eat a little bit before 9 am; Dan didn't eat in front of him._

_ Gabe was grateful, of course. But that December was a bleak one. December 27 was the date on the grave that Gabe wished he could provide, could carve into stone. Dan had died protecting him from a bear. A death that many of Gabe's friends would envy._

* * *

He took the discs home to the players he had collected over the years. He was alone, now. He blasted shitty music and rewatched the insanity that was any clip of himself and his friends; he savored the old videos.

Part of him wished he remembered more about Pete, and his mental issues that had seemed perfect during the months leading up to the apocalypse. He had been infected, though, and Meagan hadn't let anyone know Pete was anything but normal, throwing up blood violently and ignoring his kids for fear they'd catch it. He remembered Pete's death, and the specks of black in his blood, which was one of many cases.

That was when they had announced the apocalypse. When Pete Wentz' autopsy was leaked in full. It was the first of many, but the government admitted it- because they were all fleeing. Society crumbled quickly.

T_hey formed groups, seeking out food and shelter. Patrick didn't join them. Neither did Gabe's children. Patrick had shot himself with one of Andy's guns. Gabe's kids had caught the progressive diseases and died._

_Travie discovered that animals in general were immune to the diseases, and that if they walked with them they would be too. A horde of abandoned dogs joined them. Travie would be the last to go._

_ Three months after Pete died, Diego caught a milder disease, the one Gabe had, while getting water. He may have survived if he wasn't exposed to the elements in the later stages, when he had no immunities left for a short while. He died in the storm and Erin found him._

_ The fifth month in, Frank caught a case of the flu, but he had no immune system in general and constant travel only weakened him. He died in his sleep._

_ Two weeks after, Erin drowned, swept away in a flash flood. They found her days later. Gabe was getting antsy and depressed; Andy took to sleeping in a place Gabe couldn't avoid stepping to reach the guns._

_ Ten months into the apocalypse. Bronx and Meagan died together, Bronx of tetanus from a hidden wound and Meagan from sickness that wasn't the flu and wasn't the diseases._

_ One year and two months. Mike and Declan went a day apart; Mike a mercy shot in the last stage of rabies and Declan sometime in his sleep._

_ The remaining children died shortly after. A few had wandered away from the protection of the dogs (whose numbers were waning and were all neutered or spayed). They caught the diseases and passed them among each other. Travie and Gabe tried to cure them and almost worked with Cherry, but it failed. They didn't catch it. They wished they had._

_ Andy went two years in. He died of dysentary, having taken the least-filtered and sanitary water at a stop. A rookie mistake, but he was sure he'd be able to handle it. That his friends needed the better water._

_ Gabe stopped counting when they found the nearly fresh corpses of the Way brothers (who had not joined them because they weren't nearby) two years and three months in. Mikey had the bony, sickly frame of one of the sick. Gerard looked like he had bled out trying to comfort him._

_They dropped like flies after. They found more bodies, often strangers or people they couldn't place. Sometimes someone they knew, or once knew. They learned quickly that if they stopped to check one of them died._

_Travie and Gabe were the last ones when Gabe found a house that was secluded enough. They were able to find dogs there, fertile ones, and wolves to breed and to protect themselves. It had shelter for the whole group if they'd have made it. There was food and water nearby. It was abandoned, sure, but there were cats, and cats hated the smell of the virus. It was an easy test. They were safe to be there._

* * *

Gabe lived there now, and he looked at the pictures of himself and Dan. Dan was rugged, and tall; he had bright yet dark eyes and wild blond hair. They had made fast friends, and he gave Gabe the gift of company. Gabe shook his head and put back on his CDs. He was still trying to figure out a way to connect the wifi from the place up north to here. He'd tried releasing kittens there and they had ran away; so he always went up that way with dogs and a homemade gas mask.

He laughed at the video for The City Is At War. If only pie was the most dangerous thing they'd had to worry about. He felt that at least somebody would still be alive. Somebody other than him.

* * *

_Gabe hated himself for not finding it sooner, although Travie knew that there was nothing he could have done differently._

_They found electronics still plugged in, and there was a factory with parts to fix them seven miles away. And instructions. Eventually, about two years after they settled together and into a rhythm, Gabe was able to start watching the date. He ignored most birthdays, including his own, because there was nobody to celebrate, nobody to celebrate with. He ignored his own birthday, which of course happened a week after he started counting again, but he tried to make Travie's next birthday nice._

* * *

Gabe eventually gave up watching them. They hurt too much that day. He closed thr laptop carefully and put the CD in its package, carefully putting it all away. He walked away to get a drink from the kitchen, one built for private chefs and not a formerly rich man who had nothing left to live for.

He opened the cupboards and selected a mug, and his fingers brushed over a different texture. He pulled it out and set it on the counter, biting his lip. He always got tearful nowadays, for some reason. He was lonely. He wanted his friends back, and the smiling face only made it worse.

* * *

_July 30, he locked himself away in his room and worked his ass off to make something acceptable. He returned with a cup, a clay abomination that he had found a way to plaster a photograph into and preserve, one of Travie and his family that Gabe yanked off of Instagram and printed out in secret. Most of the people in the picture were 'status unknown,' but nobody ever tried to reach out online, in any language. Any country. They assumed the worst, but Travie had done his best to save all of the pictures. He knew there was a printer, but normally reserved the ink for Gabe to print out things that he used to practice his Hebrew. It was the only comfort he could give the more sensitive man._

_But Gabe used it this time not for a sheet of translations but for multiple copies of the image, and he carefully made the cup several times out of clay and some strange type of ceramic glue. After about sixteen tries, he finally got it, and he carefully glazed over the final choppy attempt in order to waterproof it. Then he put it in a shoebox with a clean blanket wrapped around it._

_Travie had opened the box on his birthday and sobbed, clutching it close and then setting it down to hug his friend tightly._

_"Thank you, Gabe, thank you," he had said, over and over, and he kept that mug as his favorite._

* * *

Gabe sobbed, head against the cupboard, and he gripped the handle of the mug. Travie had died two months before Gabe met Dan. He had died and left Gabe alone, the worst kind of torture that he didn't think anyone deserved, not even the worst types. And in those two months, Gabe wanted to join him but he couldn't bring himself to turn Andy's gun around.

Now, Gabe knew for sure that he wouldn't find anyone else. So he stayed. He didn't want to lose himself. Not to himself. Not to this virus.

He felt lonely. He did the only thing he could think of doing. He played party sounds and retreived the liquor he'd taken from a few miles away, and he hid Travie's mug so he wouldn't break it and he got shitfaced. The worst part was that he had nobody to rub against. Nobody at all.

* * *

_Travie was the one who started the courtship, with a rose. A mutated rose, of course, but still a rose._

_Loneliness and the newish ease of comfort led to them reverting back to the days on tour, fucking anyone they could. But there was only them. Gabe enjoyed the romance of some of it; but whenever they had fights it was horrible, because there was literally nobody else._

_Several months into their relationship, after Gabe got violently ill, Travie had to quarantine him. He slid food in and Gabe put the wooden plates in a furnace to dispose of them._

_The isolation was broken when Travie heard Gabe screaming, and so he burst into the door with three dogs on hand. He threw them back out to comfort his Gabe. Lord knows he needed it._

_Gabe had miscarried._

* * *

Gabe eventually woke up with a pounding headache. He forgot everything for a blissful, confusing moment. Then everything hit him like a wave, and his alarm was waking him. It was Shabbat tonight. He sighed, then got up and went to get changed.

In the closet were some of Dan's and some of Travie's clothes. He wore Travie's shirt and Dan's jeans. Nobody left to impress. Nobody left to tell him off. Besides, they were clean and in good shape. He wore them.

Gabe started the day feeding his dogs, then got some food for himself. He contemplated setting them loose, and shooting himself, but he decided not to. After all, that would be cruel.

* * *

_Travie died of a heart attack. At least, that's what Gabe thought as he went through Shiva, burying Travie's body two feet from the grave of their baby. He was never entirely sure._

_Gabe spent his time in the next two months doing his best to live normally. But it didn't work. He nearly died a few times himself. He was so lonely. He was nearly dead._

_ Gabe carefully lit the candles, saying a prayer. He tried to ignore the memories surfacing of Dan and Travie doing their best to help him through it. The tears still rolled._

_ He'd borne two children to Dan in the short few years they shared. The first, a boy they named Emmet, who died at five days old, and the second a girl named after both of his parents, Jeanette Diego. She lasted until five and a half, but she drowned the month before Dan died in a flash flood._

_He let himself die with each of them. He let himself fall ill from pain. What had he done to deserve this? What test had he failed? Or, rather, how long would this test be?_

_Was it all a dream? Was it all fake? Was he in a coma? If not all of it, was some of it fake? How much?_

* * *

Gabe let the dogs loose on his birthday. He overdosed on all of the medicine and alcohol he'd gathered and slit his wrists, four long cuts on either side. He eagerly awaited the death that would come.


End file.
